Weekly graphic. [volume] (Kirksville, Adair Co., Missouri) 1880-1949, 1887-07-08
For the GRAPHIC.
THE AzTECS OF TO-DAY.
Their Personal Appearance. Where
They Live and What They Do.
Cry OF MEXICO, June, 1887.

With the fall OF Montezuma the
power of the Aztec nation was
gone, and the slow passing away
of his people began. So that now
but few remain to tell the tradi-
tions of their deserted temples, the
devastation of their cities and
towns and the destruction Of their
deities. The Aztec Of to-day has
lost sight of what he was, thought
less as to what he is, and seems to
care less as to what he will be in
the future. He is a sad remnant
of renowned race, yet an inter
esting relic Of glorious past,
which, for him, will never return.
By law he is neither slave nor
serf but by established practice
and poverty, he is both. By statute
he is bold and fearless sovereign
of free soil, yet by long practice
he has become an oppressed and
covering creature with few higher
aspirations than to kiss the hand
of his oppressor, and with uncov-
cred head kneel before the prelate
and priest of his parish. His con-
querers never produce his CONVEX
sion; hence now as in the past,
when he believes, his faith is
founded on the fabulous, and his
hopes are to avoid the vengeance
due to the false, rather than to
secure the reward promised to the
faithful. His ideal is as degener-
ate as the supposed desires of his
deity. The fire of patriotism and
christian piety has never been
kindled in his bosom, yet the
smouldering embers of idolatry
still linger in his breast. Through
fear and oppression he lives in
state of passive obedience and by
repeated devastation of his coun-
try's domain he is reduced to a
degenerate dependent; in which
case hardship, hunger and thirst
are his companions. His tribal
relations are gane and loneliness
is his lot in life. His labors en-
rich his oppressors and thus want
welded to the inf rmities of pre-
mature old age are his inheritance.
He wears a melancholy look as if
there were no more hope in his
heart; and, indeed it is not strange
since the place in which we write
his forefathers lived in royal
splendor and feasted ON the fat of
the land. Over on the hills the
red brave chased the painting deer,
and smoked the peace pipe around
the camp fire in the moonlight,
and down in the deep shade of the
palm grove his dark squaw pre-
pared the evening meal. But now
the temples are demolished, the
deer have gone, the palms have
disappeared an, he pitiful rem
nant of that "otlpwerful people
is seen to-day living i'll rude adobe
huts down by the little lake in the
low land among the flags. Here
they subsist during life on wild
greens, grass-hoppers, the egg of
the swamp fly and small fish and
frogs that are found in the marshy
pools. He has preserved the Ian
guage of his ancestors and in
measure the faith of his fathers,
yet through fear he has long pro-
fessed a fidelity to the faith of his
foreign foes. In return for his fl
deity they have kept him in pro-
found ignorance for more than
three and a half centuries. Now
his condition is but little higher
than the wild cattle that range his
native plains and die in the desert;
and of course he has never learn
ed the great virtue of truth and
temperance which have blessed
our own land from the cotton fields
of the south to the corn lands of
the north. Neither has he learned
that a Sabbath is necessary to
sanctify the week, or that more
than penitence is required for par
don. The scanty covering for his
body is in keeping with his neg
lected social and christian culture.
His home is often a dark cave in
the canyon, a hole in the hill side,
or a mud hovel on the cactus
heath. For three centuries of
Spanish oppression, the common
school. the boon of the open
bible, that great light to higher
life, were to him things wholly un-
known. During these long years
of social and spiritual darkness, he
sank from position of the high
est to that of the lowest of the alb
origines in the New World. While
he has forsaken some of the evils
of his ancient idolatry, he has ac-
quired all the evils and avarice of
the early adventures, besides he
was made the tool of cruel des-
potism, which under various forms
cursed this country with rebellion
from the days of Cortez to the be-
ginning of the present era of pa
ciic conquest. Yet the idea of pro-
gress, and advancement to better
life and a brighter future seems
not yet to have penetrated his
mind; for he persists in max
ing of himself beast of burden,
and in his humility delights in do